Old Street Tricks
by Bekki Beekeeper
Summary: There have been murders. In an empty car park just off Old Street, London, a mysterious voice has begun to trap victims with guilty secrets, and the Doctor wants an end to it. [TenDoc]
1. Part 1

**Title:** Old Street Tricks  
**Part:** 1 of 2  
**Rating:** PG  
**Characters:** Ten, Voice, Ken

**Summary:** There have been murders. In an empty car park just off Old Street, London, a mysterious voice has begun to trap victims with guilty secrets, and the Doctor wants an end to it.

Tag to/re-working of the FilmFour short _Old Street_, in which David Tennant plays the night manager. I just wanted to pretend it was the Doctor.

**NB:** You do not need to have seen _Old Street_ in order to figure out what's going on. It's all explained.

_**Disclaimer:** Neither Doctor Who nor Old Street belong to me in any way, though I wish David Tennant did._

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**Old Street Tricks  
**_Part 1_

He had been there for some time, the man in the tasteless orange shirt. The TARDIS feed had shown him hurrying towards a marked blue van, hastily changing clothes and making a valiant attempt to drive away. He should have been long gone now, but the barrier had refused to raise.

When it finally _had_ raised, poor Ken had been wandering back on foot into the multi-storey car park in a vain attempt to find a warden or security guard to let him out. Racing back to his van as quickly as his slightly overweight, middle-aged legs could carry him, and frantically starting up the engine, he had been dismayed to find the barrier was falling again. He had barely moved three feet towards home.

Feeling isolated, frustrated and ever so slightly claustrophobic, Ken had leapt out of his van and given the ticket machine a hefty kick. Then he noticed the intercom, and the green 'Help' button. He pressed it.

That was when the visual cut out.  
That was when the visual always cut out.

The Doctor still had audio, though, despite the video being highjacked. Whoever it was apparently preferred to use the intercom on the ticket machine, and that meant they were close.

Strangely, though, he could only ever hear one side of the conversation - the victim's side. He supposed that meant the intercom was just a decoy, and that the voice was coming in on a telepathic frequency unique to the individual; but it didn't really matter. Either way, the killings would stop, tonight.

The Doctor listened closely to the one-sided conversation being channelled by the TARDIS. It was difficult to make out in places; interference was building and a lot of it didn't seem to make much sense. He gleaned certain significant pieces of information, though: Ken was a family man, albeit an unfaithful one; he had children, a wife; but his antics had taken him away from them to a hotel, where he had spent much of the night.

"I've been out." Pause. "It's none of your business." Pause. "Hello? I've been… it's really none of your business."

The TARDIS flashed up a warning of a change in power emissions around where it stood.

A nervous Ken could be heard: "Can you turn the lights back on now please?" Another pause. "I've been to a hotel. Holiday Inn. Old Street!"

And immediately the lights came back on.

"Old Street," the Doctor sighed. "Kenny, you're a stupid, stupid man."

The conversation continued, Ken becoming more and more distressed as it went on. The Doctor didn't blame him; he had good reason to be anxious about the strange voice not letting him leave. Eventually he decided it was time to step in, and - dressed in an ill-fitting grey suit he had found in the wardrobe and carrying a small polystyrene cup filled with tea - he made his way out of the TARDIS and towards the barrier.

By now, Ken was on his knees in front of the intercom yelling to be let out.

"There's no-one there, sir," the Doctor called with a calm Scottish twang. Ken, startled, turned. "There's no-one there."

"Are you… the manager?" asked Ken, pointing towards the Doctor as if he weren't quite sure if he were real.

"I'm the night manager, sir," the Doctor lied, approaching as Ken shouted a desperate 'thank you' to the heavens. Then he got up and hurried towards where the Doctor stood.

"There is someone there," he insisted.

"The shift finished at midnight, sir," the Doctor reasoned. "The car park's automated after midnight."

"No!" Ken interrupted, pointing back towards the intercom then up to the camera mounted on the wall behind them. "The guy… your guy in the glass booth!"

"There's nobody there, sir. You're free to go." He reached into his pocket for his sonic screwdriver, though to a dazed and frustrated Ken it seemed nothing more than a key on a funny shaped chain. "Why don't you go home, sir?" said the Doctor as he moved towards the ticket machine. He placed his tea on the top of it and unlocked the barrier, which raised obediently in front of them.

Ken shuffled forward, drawing the Doctor to one side as he hissed intently, "Don't let the barrier come down on my van. It's not mine, it's a company vehicle - but I'm responsible for it."

The Doctor looked at him. "I'll… hold it up for you, sir."

"You promise?"

"Yes, sir," the Doctor smiled, doing his best to appear as uneasy as any true British man would at the proximity of his suppliant.

"Thank you," Ken uttered and pulled him into a hug. The Doctor hadn't quite been expecting that; he tried pulling away but Ken's hold was worryingly tight. Eventually, close to tears, Ken released him, and the Doctor moved swiftly away to stand beside to barrier, proving he would hold it up.

With one last look at the ticket machine, Ken got into his van and started up the engine. Then, for no reason at all, he stopped it.

The Doctor watched, growing anxious. This man needed to leave now if he had any hope of escaping. "Sir?"

Ken's gaze shifted to his wing mirror, where he could see the ticket machine waiting behind him. The intercom clicked into a quiet crackling, and when at first Ken spoke his lips stayed motionless, his voice echoing in from the electronic distortion of the intercom.

"I can't move. I don't want to move."

The Doctor froze.

The distortion faded slightly. "I don't know the way home," said Ken, his lips moving now but his blank eyes staring torpidly out through the windscreen. He was no longer aware of his surroundings; he didn't even notice as the Doctor pulled open the door and pressed a whirring blue light against his temple.

"Ah!" the Doctor exclaimed in frustration and dismay, slamming the door closed again and spinning to deliver a swift kick to the ticket machine. Then a thought flashed through his mind and he pounded the green 'Help' button.

"Kenny? Ken? Can you hear me, are you in there?"

A deep, jubilant chuckle crackled through the intercom. "No, man," replied a disturbingly gleeful Afro-Caribbean voice. "He ain't here no more."

**End of Part 1.**


	2. Part 2

**Title:** Old Street Tricks  
**Part:** 2 of 2  
**Rating:** PG  
**Characters:** Ten, Voice, Ken

**Summary:** There have been murders. In an empty car park just off Old Street, London, a mysterious voice has begun to trap victims with guilty secrets, and the Doctor wants an end to it.

Tag to/re-working of the FilmFour short _Old Street_, in which David Tennant plays the night manager. I just wanted to pretend it was the Doctor.

**NB:** You do not need to have seen _Old Street_ in order to figure out what's going on. It's all explained.

_**Disclaimer:** Neither Doctor Who nor Old Street belong to me in any way, though I wish David Tennant did._

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**Old Street Tricks  
**_Part 2_

The Doctor stood back, staring at the yellow machine. "You've internalised him!"

"True," the male voice drawled lazily. "True."

"That man is brain dead!" the Doctor yelled, jerking an angry finger towards Ken. "You killed him!"

"Come, now," said the voice. "Killed is such a harsh word. He was a sinful man, man!" And it chuckled again.

"So, what, you punished him for it?"

"I purged him of his sin," was the imperious reply. "I gave the world a little bit o' justice."

"What do you know about justice?" the Doctor spat, pacing in front of the machine. He paused as the voice answered:

"What do you know about it?"

When the Doctor didn't reply, the lights cut out and darkness fell heavily around him.

"Is this how you intimidate your victims?" he asked. "Plunge them into black?"

"I like to think of it as a-bit-a mood lighting," replied the voice. "It's surprisingly effective, ya know." There was an emphatic pause that seemed to echo around the empty car park. "So," said the voice, a shade darker than before. "Tell me: where you been tonight?"

"I'm not playing this game," the Doctor answered flatly. "I'm here to stop you."

"Sure, sure," the voice cackled until the laughter came to an abrupt halt. "Stop me like you stopped the others. How'd you stop them, hm? Stopped 'em talkin'. Stopped 'em breathin'. Stopped 'em livin'."

"Don't you dare," the Doctor growled. "Don't you dare compare yourself to my people."

"Oh, but it ain't just your people, is it?" gloated the voice as the lights flickered back on. "It's all those little innocent folks in the galaxy. Think you're their hero. Think you're their saviour. You let 'em down, Doctor. You always let 'em down."

"How are you doing this?" the Doctor demanded. "What's the significance of Old Street?"

"Old Street," the voice echoed with a certain amount of relish. "What would you prefer? Memory Lane?"

"So it's symbolic," said the Doctor slowly with a glance towards Ken's van. Its former driver sat limply, lulled forward against the steering wheel.

"It is a long road," the voice mused. "Lot o' people go there to do bad things. They do bad things in hotels, in banks, in shops, even in their own houses. Then they come back here and I find out where they been, what they done. Make 'em sorry. Make 'em feel guilty. Then they remember old things they done, bad old things, and they feel even more guilty. Old Street - the name says to me, it says: Old Sins."

"So that's it?" asked the Doctor, pacing again with a frown etched onto his handsome features. "You find an excuse and you internalise them – just like that." He span around to face the CCTV camera on the wall behind him. "Except I think it's more complicated than that. There is a whole universe out there just full of mistakes. What's so important about symbolism, what's so important about guilt? Why do they have to be guilty?" His demand echoed around the empty car park. "Well?"

No reply.

"I'll tell you what I think," the Doctor continued: "I think you need them to feel guilty. As sick as this is, it's not just a game; because you're not strong enough, you're not clever enough to internalise them straight away. You have to find a way of making them weak, vulnerable, and what better way than taking them through all those mistakes they've made, all the bad things they've done? Better still, take them to the brink, the very edge of actually feeling _remorse_–"

"And they're all mine," the voice finished with sadistic glee.

"What happens if they go that much further?" asked the Doctor curiously, looking up into the lens of the camera with a scrutinising gaze. "What if they get so far as to regret it all?"

"Regret don't change what they done."

"No, it doesn't," the Doctor agreed, "but it changes who they are in the present, what they might do in the future. Self-reproach is punishment enough."

"Regret don't change what they done," the voice repeated, tone flat, words forced.

"What do you care?" the Doctor asked with a brash shrug and open gesture. "You're nothing to do with them. I hardly think you're concerned for their spiritual absolution, either. It's all an excuse, this." He waved his hand vaguely. "All these tricks, it's hardly worth the effort if you ask me."

There was a pause. Then: "Shut up."

The Doctor grinned. "Why? Does it scare you? Does it scare you that I don't have to use telepathy to know exactly what you're thinking?"

"I warned you," the voice seethed, and the Doctor was pleased to feel it was losing its grip on his mind. He was less pleased, however, to find that Ken – or at least, the body that had once housed his consciousness – was climbing slowly out of the car.

The Doctor's face darkened.

"I don't want to hurt it if there's a chance of Ken being restored," he told the voice, reaching for his sonic screwdriver, "but essentially it's an empty vessel, and I will defend myself."

"You sure, Doctor?" asked the voice, reasserting its psychic grip on the Doctor's brain. "You sure you won't feel… guilty?"

"Speaking of which," replied the Doctor thoughtfully, "don't you ever feel guilty? If this is all about wrongdoing, I mean." Ken's empty body began to advance towards him. "The last time I checked, murder came pretty high up on the list of doing wrong."

"I feel no guilt," replied the voice, and in front of him Ken's vacant face contorted into an eerie smile.

"Oh, but you must do," the Doctor insisted, backing away as Ken continued to move towards him. "What, no conscience?"

"None," the voice answered, and this time it spoke through Ken's former mouth. "I got none."

"Sure you have," the Doctor replied, still moving slowly backwards, away from the intercom and the advancing figure of a deathly pale Ken. "What is a conscience, anyway? Knowing the difference between right and wrong? Well, then, you've got a conscience, haven't you?"

Ken halted with an unnatural jolt.

"Listen, man. Would someone with a conscience turn into a serial killer?"

"Of course they would," the Doctor replied, still talking to the intercom whilst keeping an eye on the partially possessed body of Ken. "A man will do anything, as long as he's convinced he's in the right." He glanced up at the camera, raising his voice. "Your conscience is the very thing condemning these people."

"All I want," said the voice, hushed now, "is a little bit o' justice."

"That doesn't qualify you to play god," the Doctor stated, lowering his sonic screwdriver carefully.

"But you," the voice protested, "they call you that - the lonely god! Who are you to lecture me on false divinity?"

"Stop throwing this back on me," the Doctor replied calmly, taking a step forward to the stationary form of Ken. "Throughout all of this, you've blamed your victims - and I'll tell you now, I have no intention of becoming one of them."

The voice muted, the Doctor took the opportunity to continue: "You're in my head. You can read my mind - but a wise, insightful woman once taught me that doors, once open, can be stepped through both ways. And the moment I step through, I will win the struggle; read me and know it's true."

"You would… kill me?"

"I would do what was necessary to protect the innocent."

"A noble sentiment," the voice grimaced. "What about the second option? The one you're thinking of now?"

"We could take that option," the Doctor nodded, gaze shifting up to the camera; "if you genuinely want it."

The voice wavered. "Regret won't change what I done."

"You want justice," the Doctor replied, turning back towards the body of Ken. "Justice is something you can't force on other people - but true regret is the closest you'll get to imparting justice on yourself."

There was a long, agonising pause in which the Doctor felt the grip on his mind slowly shifting; the intercom crackled; something reignited behind Ken's vacant eyes.

Two voices spoke at once: one, a distortion; the other, Ken's deep croak.

"I don't know the way home."

"You'll find it," the Doctor assured them both, and the intercom's distorted hum died a slow, reluctant death.

The Doctor shook his head, shedding the final tendrils of the voice's psychic grasp as they slipped, one by one, from his mind. He closed his eyes and locked the doors to his consciousness; then, eyelids flying open once more, he took a decisive step forward. "Ken?"

"I'm sorry." Ken stood, face no longer vacant, eyes now filled with tears. He shifted his gaze to the Doctor and the tears spilled down onto his cheeks. "I need to tell my wife… that I'm sorry."

"You can," the Doctor nodded. They stood there, in the desolate waste of an empty car park, two men in the aftermath of an internal struggle. "Just go home, Ken. Just go home."

**The End.**


End file.
